


Sugar and Spice

by Not_You



Category: Watchmen (Comic), Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Attempted Child Abuse, Comfort Food, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Child, Peril, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 14:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10744056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: A little one-shot where Laurie is de-aged down to about six years old for no real reason.





	Sugar and Spice

She had thought he was going to help, but then he had turned out to be a sex preevert and now she's running as fast as she can down an alleyway she doesn't recognize at all. More than anything in the world she wants her mother, soft and comforting and smelling like Chanel No. (that means 'number') 5. She isn't a superhero anymore, but she can still hit really hard and wouldn't let anything happen to Laurie. As it is, she's alone, sobbing as she runs, her dress swishing around her legs. She's fast, but now that she's seen his face he's not going to give up, and she whimpers with terror to hear him gaining. She slips and skins her knee and she knows it's all over. This must be what it's like when the monster gets you.

Suddenly there's a horrible sound like a big dog about to bite, and a rush of wind as something goes by her fast and angry. A generic man-shape dressed like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca is on top of the preevert, beating the fear of God and all the saints into him, as Uncle Hollis would say. He would be good to have along, too. He might be old, but he's tougher than her mother, and if there's anything he hates in the whole wide world, it's men who touch little girls. It's scary that her rescuer has no face, but he seems to agree with Hollis completely, so he can't be all bad. 

She tries not to whimper, but it's impossible not to, since now there's time to really be scared and it's starting to look like she's going to witness a murder. The little sounds make him stop, and turn that black and white no-face to her. She covers her eyes as he comes over to her, and only opens them again at the sudden warm weight of his coat around her shoulders. It smells musty, but she hadn't even realized how cold she was, and draws it tightly around herself, looking up at him. He's less scary without it, because it's easier to see that he's a real person.

"Miss Juspeczyk?" His voice is gravelly, and she just blinks up at him before she remembers that that's the old name, from before they came to America. "Are you all right?"

She nods. "How do you know that name?"

"Know your mother." He ties up the preevert and leaves a little card with a funny symbol on it with him, then comes and scoops Laurie up. 

He touches her like he should, so she relaxes and curls up against his chest. It's babyish to be carried, but she's still shivering a little. He reaches into the pocket of the coat and hands her a sugar cube. She unwraps it and nibbles it like a little mouse. It makes her feel better enough to talk.

"Where are we going?"

"To see a friend."

"What's your name?"

"Rorschach."

"Rawshack?"

"Hrm. Close enough."

They have to go through a bunch of nasty, dark tunnels that are almost as scary as the preevert, but nothing gets them and soon there's a light up ahead. It turns out that Rawshack's friend Daniel has a workshop almost like Santa, and is nearly as nice, ushering them upstairs and using something on her scrape that hardly stings at all. He asks her about herself while he works, and for a few seconds in the middle of the conversation he seems almost scared and she doesn't know why. 

Daniel knows her mother, too, and asks if she's hungry. She is, and tells him so. Rawshack doesn't say anything, but Daniel makes enough starfish-shaped pancakes for him, too, and they sit across from each other to wolf them down, with hot coffee for Rawshack and cold milk for Laurie. His table manners are pretty bad, and she's sort of shocked that his mother never straightened them out.

After her belated breakfast, Laurie can hardly keep her eyes open, and Daniel takes her hand and leads her to a nice room with a grown-up sized bed, then gets her one of his own shirts to use for a nightgown. It has a cartoon owl on the front that makes her laugh, and Daniel goes out into the hallway like a real gentleman to let her change, then comes back in and tucks her in almost as well as her mother would. She has a stuffed rabbit named Lucky, and it's hard to sleep without him, but Daniel reads to her, and his voice is so easy and sweet that she's asleep within minutes.

She's not sure if she wakes up or not. It feels like she's awake, but there's a naked, glowing, blue man next to the bed, and that's more like something from a dream. Despite being naked, he doesn't seem to be any kind of preevert, and despite being blue and having weird eyes, he's not scary. He smiles slightly when she looks up at him, and she smiles back, still drowsy. "Hi."

"Hello."

"How come you're blue?"

"I was in an accident."

"Did it hurt?"

"Yes, but not now." He brushes her hair out of her face, his touch very gentle and strangely tingly, as if he's electric. She giggles. "Now, Laurie" he says softly, "I'll need your help. Can you count backward from one hundred?"

She can, even if he has to help her a little, but before she gets to forty she's asleep again. Or something. Later, she won't be able to describe the experience of coming back to her real age. She's crying by the time it's done, though, because it does feel like a loss. Jon holds her, and a look into his milky eyes tells her that he knows how she feels. He kisses her forehead as she sniffles to a stop and she laughs, running her hands over his head, tracing the hydrogen symbol with one fingertip.


End file.
